IHIP News - Trump Only Gets Worse as Billionaires Panic Behind the Scenes

Episode Date: May 24, 2026

We are joined by Gubernatorial candidate of California, Tom Steyer to discuss why billionaires like him should be taxed. Pre-order Jennifer’s new book Not Today, Fascists today: https://linktr.ee/ivehaditpodcastFollow Us:I've Had It Podcast: @IvehaditpodcastJennifer Welch: @mizzwelchSpecial Guest: Tom Steyer @tomsteyerSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Okay, joining me today on IHIP News is Tom Steyer, an investor, climate activist, and a progressive Democratic candidate for governor of California. How are you today? Great, Jennifer. Just great. Okay. You're a billionaire. Everybody knows that. Everybody knows who all the billionaires are. And I have a theory about billionaires. And I think that they all are suffering from some sort of like psychosis. They all seem nuts. They all seem absolutely bat-shit crazy. So Tom, are you suffering from this billionaire psychosis? Are you a crazy person? So let me say this, Jennifer. I'm going to start with no, but of course I'm not objective about it. Look, I didn't inherit any money. I started a business

in one room with no windows. It worked out well. I walked away from it 14 years ago, leaving billions of dollars on the table. And my wife and I took a pledge that will give the money away while we're alive. So any money that I made from business is going to go to the progressive causes that I'm talking about in my run for governor. And we've been doing it for 14 years for me full time. But Kat's been doing it forever. And I was doing it when I was, you know, running in a business.

So let me say this. I think if you're addicted to money, you are bad shit crazy. I go along with that. And I think it's critical. And I think that Catherine and I aren't addicted to money. In fact, we're addicted to getting rid of it in the ways that have the most positive impact. And I don't think that's bad shit crazy. And I think it's exactly in line with the way I was brought up. My mom was a school teacher in Harlem. And then when she retired from being the public schools, she taught in prison. My dad was a lawyer. He worked, he was in the Navy. And after World War II, they drafted him to be one of the prosecutors of the Nazis at Nurember.

my brothers as a career of being an advocate for at-risk kids. So I believe that I come from a family whose values are very much about giving back. And that's exactly what my wife, Kat Taylor and I are doing. So I think if you're addicted to money, you are batched crazy. I think it's a sickness. And I think you can see it very, very clearly in a lot of these people. But I also think, just as an example, you know, Warren Buffett's giving all his money away. Yes.

And I wouldn't say I'm a friend of Warren's, but I certainly know him and respect him. And I've been to Omaha. He lives like a normal person. Do you seem it like the billionaire water fountain? Like, hey, Warren, are you giving the billionaire water fountain? You know, like the, hey Warren, how much are you giving away? No, but my only point being, look, you can let things twist you. You can let yourself start to think about yourself as different. or you can choose to control it and try and stay a good person.

Okay. You're talking about something that I think is super important. And this is a cultural moment for us, Tom. And it is that this particular billionaire class, I call them the billionaire bedwetters. Because they, if you look on Elon Musk timeline, it is bed, wet city. Somebody needs to get that man a diaper. I have never seen such a titty baby complaining who's almost a goddamn trillion. And then you go to the guy that Zoron called out who has the $257 million pieterterre.

And I thought, what a moment for this man to call the mayor and say, hey, you're right. This system is kind of messed up. I have a penthouse who's, you know, that's worth $250 million. I agree with you. I'm going to set an example. I'm going to fly on my private plane to New York. I'm going to sit down and I'm going to write you a check to fund these kids, these working class kids that need child care. And he doesn't do that. Instead, he gets on camera and he wets the bed. And it's that

culture of entitlement when they already have so much that it's easy to hate these individuals. Like it's easy to hate Elon. It's easy to hate Peter Thiel because they're such dicks. But beyond that, it's a cultural problem. Well, Jennifer, can I say this? Yes. They hate me. You'll be happy to know. I'm relieved. When the seven candidates, leading candidates for governor of California were on a stage, they asked if you were going to tax billionaires and one person said yes, and you're looking at the one person. I've been saying for a long time, we need to be taxing billionaires like me more.

We need to be taxing the big corporations more. California is an incredibly successful state on average. We have the highest poverty rate in the United States of America. Something's not right. Tom, what would happen to your net worth if you were taxed more? Would you feel that? No. I would have, the only thing I could say, Jennifer, is maybe I'd have less money to give away,

but it wouldn't change. Look, so my mom and dad, I told you about my mom and dad. My grandfather was a research doctor and a professor. Never made more than $2,800 in a year. My grandmother hated him for it. She was like, George, you could make a lot more money if you go into private practice. didn't want to. And so he, he, they lived in Minneapolis. And when I was like 40 years old, my mom was visiting us. And I said, hey, mom, do we have a nicer house than the house you grew up in

in Minneapolis where her father was a professor at the University of Minnesota? And she goes, I think you have a nicer staircase. It's the exact, we live exactly the same way. And that's exactly how I like to live. I love California, and California is expensive, but I don't want to live differently from the way my grandparents lived or my parents lived. I don't want to be someone who's isolated from human beings. You know, the joy, the privilege and the education of being a candidate is getting out and meeting Californians face to face all over this incredibly diverse state and learning about them and learning how great they are. And that has been, people say, this hard and I'm like, I am having a ball. I am meeting so many great people and learning.

You know, and I'll give you an example. You know, there was a terrible tragedy yesterday at the Islamic Center of San Diego. It's terrible. Just so you know, we had been down to San Diego at a different mosque right near there last week. We were in touch with those people that community had endorsed me, I got a chance to meet a whole bunch of people that was such a treat, such a positive experience, and you realize how great the people are across this state. And that is, so when you say what, that's, that's the thing that I treasure. It's important to do because you really need to look people in the eye and know what their issues are, know what is not happening for them knowing what they need for government to make their life better. But it's also amazingly

reassuring to understand how great these people are across so many. We're such a rainbow coalition in this state and it is just so fun. It is just ridiculously fun. And how important is it for you to platform universal human rights to stand up against Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, transphobia, anti-black racism, all the same, that they're all interconnected. Because I see some politicians, particularly Democrats, that are capitulating mainstream centrist Democrats or capitulating some right-wing narratives, like, oh, we shouldn't talk about the bathroom, or we see this rise here and we're not going to squash this one down. To me, they're all intricately connected.

And I think diversity protects us and helps us cooperate and helps make a better place for all of us to live? Well, Jennifer, just so you know, I'm that score. Everybody's nice to you in 90% of the time. Every politician is going to say mom, apple pie, the flag, you know, I'm absolutely 100% behind those. What you need is the person in the 10% of the time when it's not popular to say. And so, you know, I think it's critical. You talked about trans people. I'm totally for trans athletes in high school. I think when you understand the vulnerability, the stress, the danger of being a trans kid, and you understand that almost half of them try to commit suicide.

And then you think we're going to punish those kids. We're going to cut them off from team sports. We're going to cut them off from participating in the community. We're going to cut them off from fun. It's like, no, we're not. No, we're not. And, you know, as someone who played sports my whole life and love sports and love playing sports, they're more important things than whether you start on your high school basketball team.

And that is standing up for people who are under a threat of death. And so if you want, you know, and so there's a perfect example. But so is the example in terms of, you know, Islamophobia. Look, clearly yesterday was a story of two very young people, it would be absolutely controlled by hate. And absolutely, you know, I think if you look at that, story the way I understand it is they went out to kill the kids. They went out to kill the kids in a school because they were Muslim. And one of the guys there who was a security guard basically

saved those kids and died. And it's like, come on. As much as those kids, those killers who committed suicide were consumed with hate, that guy did an amazing job and stood up at the cost of his life for the lives of innocent kids and isn't that great. Yeah. And so, you know, as I look at it, I view this as and standing up for people, you know, standing up for immigrants under threat from ICE. I mean, I'm the person, I think I'm the first person that's right I said, we should be abolishing us.

There's no excuse for a criminal organization. What about prosecute ICE? Look, I've said, I don't know if you've had, I hope you've had a chance to spend hours and hours, maybe days going over. I've pulled an all-nighter, Tom. Jennifer. But on my website, I said, we should abolish us. It's a criminal organization that racially profiles and victimizes and terrorizes communities.

But I can't just sign a pen and do that. But I have said we should be prosecuting ICE agents for racial profiling, which is illegal in California. We should be prosecuting ICE agents for committing. violence against California. That's illegal. And we should go up the chain. We should go up the chain to whoever is sending them. As far as it goes, if you're sending someone out to do violence, you're doing violence. And if it goes to Stephen Miller, that's the way it goes. That's remembering. So let's talk about this, Tom. Obviously, I think we're probably in 100% agreement that Donald Trump is an incompetent dementia-ridden fascist who is just horrible.

I mean, I know that's funny. It's just not that deep. It is what it is what it is. So the states are going to have a lot of power because accountability is going to come. It is going to come. I believe ultimately that the American people, even some of those that voted for him, are fed up. And this is a criminal regime. And the states are going to have power in the accountability.

that a federal pardon might not cover. And so as it pertains to all of this Trump stuff and protecting California, you know, he likes to play, if you're not nice to me, I'm not gonna give you federal funds. He likes to play those types of childish, cruel, evil games. How does a governor, Tom Steyer, stand up to a petulant, idiotic Trump? We fight. We stand up to him. We use every instrument we can. We use the courts. We use public opinion.

And, you know, Jennifer, I will remind you as an American of what Thomas Jefferson said at the beginning of the 1800s. When the Barbary pirates were bedeviling American shipping and they wanted ransom money, basically. and he said millions for defense, not one penny for tribute. When people are trying to blackmail you, don't pay. Stand up for your principles and that's what we're going to do. I think that we don't have a choice giving in for money to someone who is basically extorting you. And what you're talking about is extortion. Do what I want or you don't get what you are owed.

That's what he's saying. He's holding up FEMA payments to the people in Altadena and Pacific Palisades for a fire that took place last January. So does the governor, Tom Steyer, does he say, okay, you do that? I'm not sending the federal funds that we were collecting in income taxes. We will push every single way we can, Jennifer. What we can see is someone who is extort. Look, I don't know if you remember this. I'm sure you spent also did an all-nighter studying how great.

this was. In 2017 and 2018, I put together something called Need to Impeach, and we got 8 million signatures saying this is a criminal who's stealing from us every day. And he hates America and he wants to end it. And, you know, no one was happy. The Democratic Party was mad at me because they felt like they had this under control. We know how to handle this guy. You're muddying the waters with. And I was like, wow, seems to me like the sooner we stop this guy, the better. And if we wait. This could really get out of control. But I'm just saying, I haven't changed my opinion. I mean, he is the person behind ICE. He is the person who conceived of that and is sending masked, assault rifle armed people around the country to terrorize. And do I think that's over? I think that's

just beginning. My rule on Trump, Jennifer, is he only gets worse. If you think you've seen the bottom, I assure you, wait till tomorrow. Today is his best day until he's no longer president. Every day he's going to get worse. And if you give in to him, your question was, do you give in for money? Do you give up your values for money? You were asking about standing up for trans kids, standing up for immigrants, standing up for the black community, standing up for Latinos.

And you're saying, do you believe in that or do you believe it? when it's in your interest, you should throw them under the bus. I don't believe in giving up on the values of California. I'm doing this to stand up for working people and the values that seem to me like the traditional American values, democracy, liberty, hard work and success, inclusion. I'm talking about shared prosperity for everyone in the state of California. He's throwing people off Medicaid and Medi-Cal so that he can give tax breaks to the billionaires and the biggest corporations. That is the exact opposite of what I stand for.

That you could not more perfectly describe someone who believes health care is a right for every Californian and someone who cuts health care for millions of people so that he can give tax breaks to his cronies. So I've noticed that you, and this happened to me, so I was pretty liberal. And then after a couple of Trump terms, I've gotten more left. And some people, People can say I've been radicalized, but I say I've been kind of deprogrammed off of the corporate messaging and the way Democrats are supposed to be. I love that. I love that, Jennifer. Have you been deprogrammed?

I think so. That is a great point. And I've never thought of it that way. But let me say this. So look, if you look at me, I went to Stanford Business School. I started a business from scratch and ran it for 27 years. I mean, I was inculcated with this sense that democracy and. capitalism is what gives people freedom and gives people material success.

And what I can see, as I'm deprogrammed, I may steal that word, although I don't know. We can have it. But as I've sort of seen more of life close up, I can see where corporate special interests are taking advantage of working people. I can see where they're trying to buy our democracy in California, where they're trying to buy the people running for governor. They're successfully controlling, you know, they're successfully controlling. outcomes, the oil companies in California are trying to gut the cap and invest program that's been

there since 2007. They're trying to delay its progress for five to 10 years, and they think they're going to get away with it. They're getting windfall profits, and they think they deserve them. And my attitude is like, your guts didn't go up a penny. Donald Trump, the candidate you put in the White House, started a war in Iran, and now you're making extra $70 billion. That doesn't seem to me, but there's no sense. In fact, the head of the Western States Petroleum Association, WUSPA, which represents all the big oil companies in California, said in a meeting in Sacramento last week that it was the fiduciary duty of the oil companies to extract every penny from us that they could at the bump. Wow. So do I feel that's pretty gross.

It's disgusting. And here's what I think is some really important messaging. And I want to run this you. I'm not a political consultant, although I play one on my podcast from time to time. I think it's pretty unbelievable that the Republican Party labels working class people as mooters, as lazy as wanting government handouts. When I look at these corporations and the government handouts and subsidies and tax breaks and loopholes, it seems to me like they are the ones who are the mooters and who are the parasites. Elon Musk and the government subsidies is unbelievable. I saw an interview with Tucker Carlson, of all people, recently,

just browbeating Kevin O'Leary about these tax breaks for these data centers, and it causes me great pain to say this, but Tucker did an incredible job dismantling. I say this, it's very painful. He did a great job dismantling. the bullshit of the, it goes back to that entitlement and the lies, Tom, the lies, I'm from Oklahoma City. I live in New York now, but I live there for 51 years from my whole life. Republicans trot into these rural towns, suburban towns, and they lie to them. They say wealth

will trickle down. These corporations deserve all this shit. Meanwhile, they just transfer any sort of work or wages that these people should have and pass it over to the these entitled bedwetters. And I've had it from top to bottom about it, that the Democrats are not just brow beating this into the electorate. Look, I absolutely agree with what you just said. My whole campaign is about standing up.

California is too expensive for working people to live in anymore. Yeah. We need to take on the corporate special interest. There's only one person taking on the corporate special interest. And they're spending a record amount of money against me, and I can give you examples of what you're talking about, which is basically corporate welfare. Yes.

That's what it is. They're sitting here. I go around California. I meet working people. They work their asses off. Totally. They are very high integrity. You know, they do jobs for more than minimum wage,

but not much more that are incredibly skilled and incredibly demanding. And I listen to, you know, if you think about an oil company, okay, they don't pay for their pollution. It's like it's true. They don't pay for the, when they pollute the air and water and make people sick, that's free. They don't pay for their impact on the climate. That's free. And we are spending $200 billion in Iran to protect oil.

The U.S. armed services are all about protecting oil companies that they don't pay for. The taxpayer pays for. So do I feel, you know, and they're still much more expensive without paying all those costs, there's still much more expensive than clean energy. It's nuts. But the other thing in our state is we have legal monopolies for electricity. And they charge us twice as much as the average in the United States of America, twice as much.

And they're furious if they're spending tens of millions of dollars against me. Because I'm like, no, no, we're going to introduce local competition. They're like, competition? Are you crazy? Like, that's communist. It's like, wow. So to a very large extent, my whole campaign, is about representing working people to drive down costs that these corporations are driving up.

They're making record profits at the expense of working people, and people can't afford to live here anymore. And someone has to take them on. And I'm the only person who's doing it and who wants to tax the billionaires. He wants the corporations to pay their fair share, but also wants to break the kind of structural, you know, monopolies that they've created for themselves and that they're ringing every dollar out of. So do you think out of your opponents, you probably have, I would imagine, corporate Democrats, centrist Democrats that are really terrified of you exposing the duplicity that I see that a lot of corporate Democrats have where they take money from the same donors that also donate to one Donald J. Trump and the people who are buying into all of this fascism. And here's the thing

I always say about these billionaires, how is it that you have all this fuck you money and you can't look at Trump and say, fuck you? How is that? Like what's the point? And it sounds to me like you're saying fuck you to these people. Do you think getting eight million signatures to try and throw them out of office in 2017 was there. Look, Javier Becerra, who's one of the other leading candidates, Democratic, has taken the

maximum amount of money from Chevron. He's taken a ton of money from the second biggest oil driller. He said the oil companies aren't bad guys. We need them. And he's drilling more oil in the state of California. And he has no environmental policy. That's a Democrat. We had two fires yesterday in California outside what is normally considered fire season.

We are definitely suffering from the changes in the climate. The fires are raising everybody's home insurance rates. there is no sense that that's just something that happened we should deal with. That's not true. We need somebody in the state who's going to be pushing for the future of what's good for Californians not being paid to keep the status quo. And that is exactly what is happening. And it's amazing because we're heavily Democratic state.

It's happening with Democrats. That is. So, you know, to a very large extent, what you're saying is the status quo doesn't, work for working people. And that's definitely true in the state of California. And unless we take on the people who run the status quo, which are these corporate special interests, we're not going to change it. And we have to do that. I mean, I know that across the board, big political action committees and independent expenditures from billionaires and big corporations are dominating our politics and people are absolutely scared of them and they won't say boo.

Don't you think that a lot of these corporate Dems, obviously I'm going to say, I think Republicans are far worse. I lived in a Republican super majority state. It's not even close. I'm not one of these people that says, oh, Kamala Harris would have been the same thing as Donald Trump bullshit. Kamala Harris would be a million times better. I'm a realist and pragmatist about this shit.

But I will say one point that I will seat on. And that is that the Democratic Party playing patty cake with these donors like A-PAC, like Chevron, who ultimately want the Republican Party because there's so much more, such more savages about, you know, everything and anything, and they value profits over everything. But these centrist Democrats that play patty cake with these same donors helped prime the working class angst that fueled this fascist takeover. And I think we have to as Democrats call out these do nothing, donor-sucking Democrats that take the same money from Palantir and all of the aforementioned PACs that I was speaking about.

But I think the other thing, and I think I completely agree with what you just said, Jennifer. And I want to say this, for the last, I guess it's eight years, no, 10 years. Democrat's basic point is that the sort of status quo, we're not Donald Trump. It's like, okay, that's good. What are you? What are you? And there's been no vision of what America's supposed to look like that works for working people. And that's very much what I'm trying to do in this campaign to talk about, how are we going to make it possible for working people to buy a house?

We have to be able to do that. How are we going to make sure that health care is a right that everybody gets at a price they can afford? How are we going to do that? That's why I'm for single payer. But it goes right down the line of in order to do some of these things, you're going to have to take on the corporate powers that be that have it their way. And if you're not willing to do that, then what's your vision? Our vision is sort of like more of same, but we're not going to be thieves and we're not actually vicious. I agree. Okay, there's been some pearl clutching recently over you. You were called out for paying influencers to support your campaign, some of whom didn't disclose that they were being paid. Do you think that there is a double standard between Democrats and Republicans doing this?

I don't know. You know, Jennifer, look, we never pay anybody for endorsement. We pay people for their time if they're doing work. We pay them. We disclose every single part of that. The other people who I'm running against do all of this through independent expenditures and disclose nothing. And so we're exactly following the rules, and I have no apologies to make for it. But I want to say this, honestly, this is a diversionary tactic. Javier Viserra doesn't want to meet with reporters. He doesn't want to take questions from Californians. he is running away from any sort of scrutiny because he can't withstand it.

And they're trying to come up with issues to like divert. And this is a perfect example. Look, I want to talk about what's going on with working people in California. I want to, I will, you know, this is an attempt to change the subject from what actually matters in California to something that it's just a diversion from a campaign that has nothing to offer. And they're the people pushing this. and from my standpoint, it's like, look, why don't you tell us what your environmental policy is? How about if you tell us your policy on regulating data centers? You know, what do you have to say about APEC?

And they want to say, no, no, no, this is about, you know, an influencer. No way. I think it's pearl clutching, and I probably get a bunch of pushback from the left on this. But here's what I like, because I know how ruthless and myopically focused on winning campaigns Republicans are. And I think we have to show up and we have to fight fire with fire. And I think we put everything on the table because democracy's on the line. Working class Californians are on the line.

Your right. Wages are just horrifically low compared to what these people that sit at desk that make hundreds of millions of dollars sit there and paperclip and staple and highlight all day. And you have laborers out there working their asses off and they never get a And I want to just two more questions. Here's the second to the last one. Why are you better than all of the other names that are running in California? Because I have no conflicts. I'm 100% committed to working class people and I'm 100% committed to taking down corporate special interests and I've been doing it successfully as a private citizen. I have a long list

of accomplishments, including breaking these corporate special interests at the ballot box. three times huge, including the oil companies, the tobacco companies, and out-of-state companies. I have a long history on every progressive issue in this state of working for it. And I'm not taking money from any of these people, and they're scared of me. And you can look and see the people who are spending money against me, big oil companies, the electric monopolies, the realtors, across the board big companies, and billionaires are spending tens of millions of dollars against me. And you can look who's with me.

the teachers, the nurses, the people who work in restaurants, you know, the people, the cafeteria workers, the home care workers, you know, across the board. And every, the progressives are with me and every environmentalist in the state. And it's kind of like, you look who's against me. They're not against anybody else. Not one other person. They don't spend a single penny against anyone else. I'm their threat. And you look who's supporting me. You know, that's who's supporting me. You know, just so you know the biggest Islamic Confederation in the state of California care has endorsed me. You know, across the board, the people who are at risk, the people who need support are endorsing me because there's one person in this state who is not scared to

take on the power should be and they know I will do it and I won't give up and I won't quit in the many. All right. Last question. And I think this is going to come with a big I've had it podcast endorsement. But I just want to ask you, can you still back that ass up and break out into an eight count with me? Kylie, play the clip. I mean, I told you I did an all-nighter. I love this. I love it. Can you still back that ass up? If you're governor, do you promise more backing up of the ass, Tom. Jennifer. So first of all, I love to dance.

I love to have fun. California is a state that has always been having fun. And so I don't want to turn this into this joyless place. I love to have it. You know, literally I played soccer through college and I went out last weekend to play with some high school kids. And every time my team is like, this is going to be like, oh, this is going to be terrible. But was it enormously fun?

So fun. And so am I going to quit having fun and make this? I mean, think about Trump. He is joyless. He has no sense of humor. I love to go. Like one of my favorite things in this world is goofing with my friends. I love to do that.

And I love to goof with my kids. And they're like, oh, yeah, seriously, you think you're funny. I'm like, I am funny, dude. So, yeah, I'm going to keep doing all that stuff. I love it. Tom. Thank you so much for joy. joining us. I wish you the very best of luck. I really appreciate your honesty. I really appreciate

your conviction. And I appreciate your lack of conflict. I think that is a really good position to be in. Thank you, Jennifer. And I want to say this. Thank you for standing up. We need more Americans who are willing to stand up. It's a huge, huge, huge deal. That thing about Thomas Jefferson, millions for defense, not a penny for tribute. We need more people with that attitude. Thank you. Have a good day.